It’s the hunter’s wellies brigade, it’s the terrible toilets and grass that’s been turned into mud by urine. It’s the ludicrously expensive shit lager and terrible, terrible food. It’s the same stalls full of new age shite, it’s the inability to sit down, the miles of massive walks from stage to stage or from the car park to perimeter. It’s the shit sound, the bad weather, the drunk twats, the shitting in a fucking box, the getting up early the getting no sleep. I’ve always found festivals to be utter bobbins of the highest degree. I know I’m alone in this fact but who cares.

I can't remember his answer in much detail, but it was basically that it would be a restriction of freedom of people to trade if they banned selling tickets over face value. The ban on re-sale of football tickets is purely driven by fan behaviour and the need to control where fans of each team are in a stadium.

Ultimately, there's an argument to say that although it's a completely scummy thing to do, if there is a market for it there is no logical reason to restrict it. Not saying by any means that I subscribe to that view, but I can see the argument.

yeah, I guess people paying £1000 for a beyonce ticket are dickheads anyway. but then the problem is making sure real people have first refusal on tickets before scalpers eventually get them. at the moment it seems like they don't stand a chance of getting tickets any other way.

I did go to take some up an alley once and a fit girl was wanking off a tout for what I presume was Queens of the stone age tickets. They were bartering over whether it was 2 or 3 she would get mid stroke

HIM: ...well all I'm doing is basic economics ennit. People are willing to pay that price - I give 'em the tickets at that price. Just the market mate.
ME: Yeah but it's not is it because you're distorting the market by lessening the supply of tickets for people in the first place.
HIM: Yeah but people are happy to pay more for tickets so I give 'em to 'em at that price.
ME: Yeah but you're artificially pushing the price up by limiting the supply in the first place.
HIM: Nah I ain't - just giving people the tickets they want at the prices they're willing to pay for them.
ME: Not really though. People HAVE to pay those prices because you've hoovered the tickets up at the price they would have preferred to pay
HIM: Nah mate, I'm providing a service to the public. The ticket companies are the ones making all the money not me.

the mate in question defended himself by saying that the ticket companies are making all the profit. If he's selling tickets at a value higher than the price they were initially sold at it's him who is making a profit not the ticket companies.

There's more to it than just `haha it's ALL the fault of people who pay the prices`. Notwithstanding the inconsistencies of this line of thinking in line with your other thoughts on how big companies behave and how they exploit people (which I've seen you kick off about on here before).

The market for ticket touts is one that is created by one thing and one thing only - an event selling out/tickets ceasing to be available from the `official sellers`. It is only then that a market for touting exists. Touts actively remove the original ticket supply, meaning they actually work to create the market they need. It doesn't judge magically appear, meaning the usual rules of supply and demand (i.e. tickets have sold out therefore they're worth more) don't apply as organically.

The correct answer is that both touts and purchasers contribute to the problem in equal measure. Where you stand morally on these two groups of people is another matter entirely but for you to lay the blame ENTIRELY at the feet of the purchasers isn't accurate. And, again, inconsistent with your other views on macroeconomic phenomena whereby large companies exploit consumers...

Have you invited a new group of mates to hang about on DiS recently and are acting like the big man in this thread to impress them or something?

I'm frustrated by your tone, your inaccurate assessment of the impact of touting and the fact your views are inconsistent with TheWza brand. That and the fact I think you're on the wind up a bit, so I'm responding in kind.

and if I did, I think I would blame the popularity of the band rather than touts buying up a load of them. At least then I would have a hope of buying one if I wanted to pay top dollar rather than hoping someone returns it face value.

Really wanted to go and see a gig recently. It had sold out. I went to the venue on the night and asked a tout how much he wanted for a ticket. He was quoting four times the face value. I said nah, but I'd check back later, when the gig was underway. Went back. He was prepared to drop his price by a tenner, down to sixty quid. I chuckled at his hopefulness and went and had a few pints in the pub instead.

this is what i'd do if i won the euromillions. i'd set up a not for profit touting business, complete with security team to buy every ticket for every event happening that i could and then redistribute the tickets for face value to people that were actually going to go to the gig. that is now my dream

mate and I were queuing to get into Brixton Academy to see No Doubt play. Mate asks tout how much he was selling a ticket for, despite it being obvious we both had tickets as we were just about to enter the venue. Tout replies "do you want a fight". Mate genuinely misheard and said "twenty five?". Tout then proceeds to grab my mate and frogmarch him to the back of the queue so he had to queue up all over again. Nobody let my mate push back into the queue.

1. When tickets are released, they start out at a ludicrously inflated price.
2. Some method by which you get refunded the difference if you are a genuine gig-goer, or the price gradually comes down, or something. This bit needs work, I'll admit.

Any bots hoovering them up would end up with a massive cost. And any idiots who want to pay massively over the odds to make sure they go still can.

Someone turn this into a coherent plan, I'm sure its in there somewhere.

Kid Rock’s four-part solution: flood the market with lots of shows to make sure that even at the low price of $20, there are still tickets available; have a small number of super-expensive tickets near the front; allocate the very best seats by lottery to people who bought the cheap tickets; and enforce it all with paperless tickets and an ID check to prevent resale.

everyone is getting angry over Kate Bush tickets ending up in the hands of scalpers, but i've seen just one person (and he's the worst person) angry over the fact that the ticket prices were insanely gouging in the first place.

£50 or £60 for three hours of live music from a performer who hasn't toured in a generation, in a non-arena venue, isn't that unreasonable, given how much people pay to go to other gigs, or concerts, or films or plays.

didn't feel extortionate, given how good they were and the attention to detail and stageshow.

It's like with the Bjork shows a few years ago at the Apollo. At the time it was the most I'd ever paid for a ticket, at £45, but afterwards I walked out and thought, you know what? I'd have happily paid double to see that.

£60-70 can be a week's rent or food money for some people, and invariably it's the artists who need the money the least who are charging the most.

I appreciate these shows are "bigger" in terms of production, and I understand that big artists have always charged more, but it's become utterly runaway in the last few years. Surely you can appreciate that? Kate Bush and Bruce Springsteen charge these figures because they can, but now they're charging 8x the £8 you've given. Fifteen years ago it would've been closer to 4x. It's only live music, of course, but speaking personally the anti-touting arguments fall on ideas of equity and that your access to live music shouldn't be dictated by your ability to pay over the odds, and I consider the runaway price inflation of these "heritage" act shows to fall largely into the same category.

touring costs/elaborate stage shows are one thing, but they can only account for so much of the ticket price for the grand old dames of showbiz. The rest is greed/taking advantage of what the market will allow them to charge (delete as appropriate).

But also fuck ticket touts, they contribute nothing. They frequently threaten people outside venues if they dare to try and arrange a face value sale without involving them, and generally make the outside of venues even more grim and unappealing. If they didn't exist, sites like Scarlet Mist would be the norm and people would be able to exchange, buy and sell tickets for reasonable amounts. Tickets would I'm sure still change hands for big money for special events but if people were limited in how many they could buy then it wouldn't be huge scale profiteering, and anyone who did slap down £1000 would only have themselves to blame.

once these Kate Bush gigs have happened, what percentage of tickets were bought from a tout. Think it may be a lot lower than what we've been led to believe. No idea how one would obtain these statistics however.

Using Kate Bush as an example, I know various people who applied for tickets and they all got something. Prices varied. But they were uberfans who were hitting the computer screens the instant the tickets went on sale.

Where touts mainly come into play is selling to people who vaguely fancy going to see Kate Bush, but only think about it much nearer to the date of the concert.

In many respects it's like tickets to a top football match. The days of being able to roll up on the day are long gone. If you really care a lot, you buy tickets the moment they go on sale, otherwise you go to touts who bought tickets that you were too idle or unaware to.

That rich people should just be able to do whatever they want on a whim. Need to keep 20% of gig tickets back so little Esmerelda can flash Daddy's credit card when she decides she's like really into Kate Bush yah between now and September

I think the problem is overstated. There will be a handful of people panicking and willing to pay ridiculous sums but not many so over time the prices will fall, close to the event the opportunists will be desperate to get rid of the tickets at a normal price. On balance I'm glad touts exist